Daval

I thought I would share with you my recent experience with doing an entire suckling pig on my barbecue.

First of all I want to give a shout-out to my boys - Peetster and Hanxter who both gave me the ideas and tips for doing this.

The pig itself was a 12lb suckling pig which I ordered from my butcher. I called him and told him what I was looking for and he was able to get one frozen for me. This one cost me $65 which I thought was pretty reasonable.

When buying your pig I would recommend that you get 1lb per adult. So if you have a 12lb pig you can expect to feed 12 adults.

First thing I did was to get the pig on the spit. I used the standard spit that came with my barbecue (I have a propane Broil King Imperial 90). Then you tie the legs in such a fashion so that the pig looks like it is lying down. I used butchers string which I got from my butcher. I also made sure to tuck the ears underneath the string as well because I did not want them to burn.

I had my butcher remove the eyes for me, I have heard that you can keep them in or have them removed. I put in balls of aluminum foil into the eye sockets to give it a psycho space alien look.

Anyhow. First thing I did was take salt and pepper and rub the entire pig - inside and out. I then took 1/2 lb of butter, 2 cups of brown sugar and a whole crapload of garlic and rubbed this inside and outside of the pig. I then took two apples and a bunch of scallions and chopped these into large chuncks and stuffed them in the pig. I also added 3 long sprigs of fresh rosemary for flavour.

The hard part was sowing up the cavity. I don't have a meat or poultry sowing kit or an upholstery needle so I did it manually by taking a sharp pointy knife and poking holes on either side of the belly flaps and then using a skewer to push the butchers string through. Once I had the belly sown up I massaged the belly to be nice and smooth and evenly space out the stuffing. Once protein cooks it firms up and sets into posistion, so I wanted it to look nice.

I decided to do the stuffing and sowing while the piglet was on the barbecue so I was doing this outside. We were having a pretty crap weekend weather wise and the rain gods decided to frown down upon me while I was doing this. I got absolutely soaked.

Anhow, I digress. I then turned the rear rotisserie burner onto the lowest setting and plugged in the rotisserie and closed the cover.

IMPORTANT - resist the urge to check on your pig every 15 minutes. Noone is going to steal it, and everytime you check on it you kill the heat in your barbecue and it will extend your cooking time.

You basically need about 20 minutes per pount so the entire pig only took about 4 hours. I overcooked mine ever so slightly on purpose to appease the women in my family, but use a meat thermometer and stick it into the haunch to make sure you get to the correct internal temperature which is in the 160 - 170 range.

I kinda screwed up on the skin, because although it was an absolutely gorgeous golden brown, it was soft - it didnt go crunchy. The way I screwed this up was by basting the pig in butter every hour or so. I should have just rubbed some kosher salt into it and left it alone.

I'm sorry I don't have any pics of the 'after' - I ran out of film, but it looked fantastic!

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tropple

Man, you sure nailed that space alien look. it looks darned fast spitted out like that.

I've had many roast pigs at squadron parties while in the Philippines. It was always something I looked forward to.
The people who cooked out pigs always wrapped it in a bazillion banana leaves and buried it in a charcoal pit.

Too bad about the skin not being crunchy.

Maybe I'll give this a shot at home.

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Hanxter

kind of looks like dick cheney...

nice job, dude, damn nice!!!

la petite moi

Aw, that is so sad.

*Sorry, vegetarian.

Dilbert1234567

musta been from a tough farm, it has a tattoo

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Daval

ROFL, thats hillarious!

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"It is impossible to obtain a conviction for sodomy from an English jury. Half of them don't believe that it can physically be done, and the other half are doing it."
Winston Churchill

Charlatan

Sowing... typos like that make me laugh...


You should have taken a picture of the finished pig.


...and this little piggy went we we we all the way home

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Polyphobic

Damn it! You are making me hungry

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Averett

That sounds so amazing!

That picture though.. reminded me of biology class and disecting piggies.

Next time have enough film for the after damnit!

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edmos1

damn that looks good,

cameroncrazy822

Is this thread about my old girlfriend?
Sorry... I couldn't resist.